M is for Mercedes Lackey

Mercedes Lackey is a fantasy writer that I just adore.  I was introduced to her quite randomly one
day when I received The Serpent's Shadow in a box of free books.  At the time, fantasy was not really my thing.  I had read so many through middle and high school that I had begun to think myself a little too old to be caught up in such books.

It was the cover that drew me in.  It was so unlike any other book I had seen at the time.  I read it and fell in love.  This was one of the best fantasy books I had ever read, I was sure of it.  Not only was it a tale of magic and wizards fighting in Edwardian London, but it was a very cleverly disguised retelling of Snow White.

A new take on an old fairy tale brought me back to the world of fantasy, or to be more precise, the world of Mercedes Lackey.

I began to search for more of her books, hoping to find more fairy tale wonders to read.  I would not be disappointed.  I found The Gates of Sleep, a Sleeping Beauty retelling set in Victorian England. Then The Fire Rose, Beauty and the Beast set in 1905 San Fransisco. Phoenix and Ashes, Cinderella set during World War I in England.  The Wizard of London, The Snow Queen, again in Victorian London.  Reserved for the Cat, Puss in Boots, set in England.  And lastly The Black Swan, Swan Lake, Medieval period.

Now none of these books are exact retellings...if you know the fairytale you'll have no problem picking out their elements in her story.  They're kind of like re-imagined tales for grown ups.  At the moment I believe these are all of her fairy tale based books, although she has a whole slew of other fantasy books to read if you find you like her style.  There is a new one, Unnatural Issue, based on the fairy tale The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter that comes out in June that I can't wait to get a hold of.

                                                    

L is for Labyrinth

...and for being late. I had finally caught up and thought I was doing well!

Labyrinth is a Jim Henson movie starring David Bowie and some random girl that every fan girl wishes she could be. Why? David Bowie, for one.  The first time I watched this movie I had a serious WTH? moment...it pretty much lasted throughout the whole movie.  I put it away near the back of my movie collection and forgot about it.

Fast forward a few years and I come across this book at the bookstore, The Goblins of Labyrinth, by Brian Froud.  It looked eerily familiar.  Browsing though the book I fell in love with the Labyrinth for the first time.

When I got home that night I googled the Labyrinth and spent the next few hours reading reviews, browsing fan art, and discovering the joy of fan fiction.

Fan fiction is amazing.  It's like finding that perfect story and after lamenting the fact that it's over you discover that it was only book one in a series of thousands.  It's a story lover's dream come true.

Now not all fan fiction is awesome.  Some of it will make you cringe and wonder how much the monkey with the typewriter got paid to pound this particular story out. But sometimes...sometimes you get a real gem.

If you're not already familiar with the Labyrinth, I would suggest you watch the movie first, or head on over here to read the novelization.  The book is long out of print, and what few copies do come available are quickly snatched (I saw one bidded up to nearly $300) so don't feel too bad reading this free copy.

Then head on over to fanfiction.net (movies > Labyrinth) to see the wonderful continuing stories of the Labyrinth.

Some fan fics that I love:   

My Fine Feathered Friend

(also known as the best fan fic ever!!!!)

Candies and Pumpkins

Within You

The Tshirt Incident

The Tshirt incident: Retaliation & Escalation 

Of Pineapples and Kings 

 And the beginnings of my own late to be updated Labyrinth fanfics:

http://www.fanfiction.net/~simply01

        

K is for KickStarter

I spent the day wracking my brain in vain, trying to think up a "k" word to write about.  As I sat in despair, staring at my Krystals and deciding that writing about fast food would be a last resort,  I received a weekly email update from a site I visit.  Looking though the links, I found something great. It was awesome.  It was so great it was beyond awesome.  I wanted to write about it.  I had to write about it. But alas...it did not start with a "k".  So as I was bookmarking it to save for another letter further in the month, and feeling rather sad, I came to realization that while it might not start with a "k", the website sure did!  Suddenly there was joy, my blogging mind was at peace, and all was right with the world once again.

I present to you the awesome website kickstarter.com .  KickStarter  is basically a funding website.  You come up with an awesome idea, an idea so great that it will radically change the world as we know it.  Okay, so maybe the idea's not quite at that level, but it's rather awesome none the less.  However, you find yourself lacking funds to pull off said idea.  This is where KickStarter comes into play.  Submit your idea for funding, set a goal of how much and when, and if enough people support you, your dream just became a reality.

So I can already hear you say, "well gee, that's neat and all, but what do I get out of it?"  This is the fun part.  when you donate money, you become a "backer".  Backer's usually recieve some form of compensation depending upon the level of their donation.  What the compensation is varies for each project.

"But wait!" you say, "what's all this about setting a goal of how much and when?"    A monetary goal is set in the vary beginning.  If this project can raise X amount of money within this allotted time frame, it's a go.  If the project fails to raise X amount of money within the allotted time frame, the project's dead.

"So what happened to the money I donated?" This is the genius of it all.  When you become a backer the money you give is put on hold. It works in the same way a hotel reservation does; you give them your credit card number (or paypal in this case) in order to reserve your room (funding level) however they don't process the payment until you get there (the project is a go).  So if the project receives enough money from backers, you pay, and if the project fails to get enough backers, it drops your hold and no money changes hands.

Since this site is open to anyone, you should really research the various projects to find the ones that are right for you.  Below you'll find some projects that I find rather interesting, even if I'm not backing them. 

SketchChair: Furniture Designed by You

Urbio Vertical Garden

Once Upon a Time

 Portable Fortitude: 54 Talismans; Reprint of unique deck

 June 4, 2011: Drawing Day (1 million drawings in 1 day)

 

J is for Japan

Japan's been in the news quite a bit lately.  It seems as if the earthquakes will never end and the damages just keep increasing.    I was amazed at the amount of art that has poured out in support of Japan since the first quake.  Here's a small sampling:

9.0

Redraw Japan

And then there are the artists that urge you to put your money where your mouth is...

Japan

Don't worry, they're not telling you to stop praying, just that prayers alone won't get them far.  Donate to the Red Cross if you can : )

And while so many are focused on Japan, we forget that other places, like New Zealand, were also hit pretty bad...

Quake

Why did we forget about those other places? Maybe because....

Don't Panic

Good luck Japan, I hope you recover quickly.  Good luck to you to, those other countries affected.

To see the original art works click the links.  

All art copyright their creators over at DeviantArt.

I is for Illusion

Illusions...mere tricks played on our senses to distort reality.  It's like that old quote "What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind perceives to be true."  Illusions are why we've spent centuries enthralled by magicians, why kids love those magic box sets that never seem to work, and why we're always a bit disappointed when someone explains the mystery of a certain trick.

So for your viewing pleasure today, I present you with some illusions.  To learn how they work click their links, to preserve the magic of it all, pass it by.

Stare at the center for 30 seconds   Learn More

Are those horizontal lines parallel or slanted?  Learn More

Is she spinning to the left...or to the right?  Learn More

Are squares A and B the same color?  Learn More

Ever wonder what this would like in real life?  Mystery Solved

Well wasn't that fun?  If you ever have time to waste, go check out www.moillusions.com they have some pretty neat illusions too.

H is for Haiku

It took for eeeever to think up an H word, and I'm still a day behind.

So a haiku is a type of Japanese poetry that when translated over into English results in a 3 line poem of 5/7/5 syllables.  Sounds pretty easy right?  And it is...most of the time.  I've written several over the years, every time poetry was covered in school it seemed writing one was a requirement.  Which is why I was a bit perplexed when after half a day I still had nothing.  Was I worried? No! After all, I have the internet and am well versed in the ways of google.

So I present to you a haiku generator! Tada!  It randomly puts together lines of 5/7/5 so some...okay most...of the hiaku's generated will leave you a tad confused.  At least I was.  So I took the 5/7/5's that I liked (some are just too weird lol) and mashed them together to make my own haiku's

lucid dreams calling

lost in silence in her eyes

a blown kiss wanders

robins call softer

the river sleeps lost, broken

haunted dreams struck down

So go give that generator a whirl and see what crazy haiku you can come up with : )

G is for Golf

Or mini golf in this case : )  I went to Congo River Golf on Friday and had an awesome time. It's a winding 18 hole course that takes you through the adventures of the famous African Congo explorers Henry Stanley and Dr. David Livingstone.  We went to the one on International Drive and found ourselves, of course, surrounded by tourists.  Apparently there is no such thing as mini gold in England if I were to guess by the huge number of British families we encountered. It was an interesting course in that it seems to consist of 3 or 4 levels...all I know is there were quite a few stairs and I stared in awe and baited breath as I watched one family maneuver a baby stroller through the levels.

After our riveting 18 holes, of which I did a laughable job of 19 over par, we went to visit the turtles.  Yep, turtles.  They have a rather large pond filled with about 15 turtles that swim around and eat the 25cent turtle food that you can throw at them.  Most of them were sleeping when we saw them, then again we were there at like 10pm and I don't think too many turtles are night owls.

So with a good-bye to the sleeping  turtles we moved on to the gators. Yep, they have gators too.  For a small price you can take a photo of yourself holding one (bring your own camera) or feed them bits of hot dog from a special sort of fishing rod.  It was kind of exciting to watch them feed.  They're rather small, the biggest was no more than my arms length snout to tail, but still pretty strong.  Some would clamp down on that special hook they use to hold the hot dog and refuse to let go.  The people would tug on the poles trying to free the hook, and the gator would go into a death roll  to try and make it stop.  They would eventually let go to the delight of the person holding the pole.

Being a Floridian and being around gators enough to know that even at that size they're not something I'd want to go up against, it was rather funny to hear how these tourist talked about them.  Mostly they called them dumb little animals too stupid to let go of a hook, and why would anyone in their right minds be afraid of these things? I mean really, they don't even have teeth!   Really...No teeth?  I would love to hear you say that when one of them is clamping down on you.  Just because you didn't see 4 inch teeth doesn't mean they're toothless.  And that whole death roll thing?  Yeah, kinda an instinct thing to kill the prey, which in this case was the pole you kept jerking around.

 So, mini golf...  It was really fun and if you've never been, or haven't been in a while, I really suggest you go.  Since this place was open rather late, go make a night of it, it's a lot more fun to play when you don't have the Florida sun beating down on you.

F is for Film

Isn't film awesome?  By film I mean photographs, you know, back in the day when you had to buy film and had 24 pictures at a time to carefully use?  Unless you're extremely young, you remember 35mm film, and if you're a nerd like me, you can read a bit about it here.  Inevitably you would find out when you finally took it in to be developed that some were blurry or had a thumb in the corner, or you had accidentally taken a picture of your feet or chopped off someone's head?  If you can't tell I'm rather ecstatic to have digital cameras now, so those mess ups don't cost me money and I usually end up with a somewhat perfect picture to preserve the moment.

But back to film!  Have you ever stopped to think about how lucky you are to be around in the time of film? We tend to think that things we use every day have been around forever, but in reality?  The first person in my family to have their photograph taken was my great-grandmother at age nine.  It was a some-what family portrait of her with her sisters.  When was your first photo? I'm guessing most of us had amassed numerous photos before our first birthday.  And think of the memories preserved!  Can you remember exactly what someone looked like 5, 10, 20 years ago?  Film has let us remember all the things that once were, whether we were there personally to experience them or not.

My grandma around the age of 6

My grandpa around the age of 8

E is for Education

No matter how old we get, we never stop learning.  So for this "E" post, I'm going to share some educational sites that I've come across that either I've enjoyed or my nephew has.


Reading:

Starfall:  Great for beginning readers.  This site was designed with grades k-2 in mind.  For the newest of readers, they have a section that will walk you through the alphabet.  You can then move on to phonics with short stories and then onto more advanced stories. Well...advanced up to 2nd grade : )  The nice thing is that each word has the option of  being read to the user, so if you're not sure what the word is or how to pronounce it, click on it and it will be sounded out for you.  The site also has some holiday activities and it looks like they're beginning to branch out into math as well.

International Children's Digital Library:  This site has children's books from around the world.  Granted most of them are rather old, but it's interesting to see how far children's literature has come over the years. 

Math:

Math Fact Cafe:  A good source for practice math sheets.  Gives basic math along with time and money.  You can chose from premade work sheets or set your own parameters to create your own.  They also let you change the font size used along with how much work space is for the problem.

Social Studies:

Kids.gov:  An interesting site dealing mostly in U.S. currency, past, present, and future.  There are quite a few things to chose from on here, but here are two that we enjoyed:  Design your own bill lets you try your hand at designing paper currency.  The time machine lets you learn about the history of all those different designs on the backs of your coins.

Science:

Celestia:  This is a must for anyone interested in space.  The controls take a bit of getting use to, and be sure to check out the add-ons section to even further enhance the experience.  Celestia is an interactive map to the universe.  It allows you to track planets in orbit, watch their rotations, and see the night sky like you never have before.  Some interesting features include turning on a night view of earth.  This allows you to see the city lights from space and makes it an interesting way to spot some of the more populated places on the planet.

Edheads:  An interesting mix of virtual activities.  Kids can design virtual cell phones, learn about predicting weather, how simple machines work, and perform hip replacement surgery.  There are a few different virtual surgeries, and they allow for the view of actual surgery photos, so preview this to make sure it's okay for your kids!  A good way of showing what a family member will go through if a child is upset about their upcoming surgery.

D is for David Bowie

To bad I though of him after "B" had come and gone.

Everybody has heard of David Bowie, unless they've been living under a rock for the past few decades.  In the event you haven't heard of him, you have definitely heard his music (it's everywhere) or have seen him in a film.

The man's a genius, constantly evolving himself through the years.  He never seems to stay the same for long, which is why I'm always surprised to "discover" he did a certain song I've listened to for ages on the radio, or played a certain role in a movie.

I'm fairly new to the Bowie fanclub.  Labyrinth was my gate way drug just a few years back.  However I'm fairly certain that had I been a teenager during his early years of success my room would have been plastered with his posters.